Thursday, November 25, 2010

Happy Thanksgivin' Y'all!

I'm stuffed. Seriously. Just for fun, I weighed myself this morning before eating and then I weighed myself after cramming my face with Thanksgiving deliciousness. I gained five pounds — in less than eight hours!! I ate a lot, y'all. I always do on Thanksgiving Day. In case you couldn't tell, I'm sort of a food addict. I have self-control on most days. But Thanksgiving is the day I give myself full permission to gorge until I'm physically unable to move for at least an hour.

Not only am I celebrating the Thanksgiving holiday today, but I'm also celebrating my 16-year vegiversary (technically it's the day after Thanksgiving, but....). I think that gives me a pretty great excuse to be a glutton.

I always do Thanksgiving at my mom and dad's house, and my awesome mama makes all the dishes vegan! She makes a turkey for everyone else, but I always get a stand-in of my choice. This year, I went with the new Gardein Stuffed Turk'ys. Here I am before I gained that extra five pounds:

Let's take a closer look at that plate. Here's all I could cram onto one plate, but I also had a second plate filled with baked beans and corn. And then those plates were followed by dessert:

Now, let's break down each item. First the Gardein Stuffed Turk'y — a new item this year on the faux turkey market. These breaded stuffed "breasts" were mighty tasty, as one should expect from Gardein. They even came with some tasty gravy. The only drawback? The package only comes with two small stuffed turk'ys, which doesn't leave much for leftovers:

For the past three years, my mama has made homemade cranberry sauce. Before, we always had the stuff from the can. But we've learned that fresh is so much better. Ours has pecans and orange zest:

My mama's vegan cornbread dressin' is the best in the whole world. She also gets props from the rest of the family for her non-vegan dressin'. But I don't remember what that tastes like. My omni boyfriend tried both and preferred the vegan version. Lucky for y'all, this recipe will be included in my cookbook:

This Ramen Noodle Slaw was a first this Thanksgiving, but it's definitely a keeper. This dish was hands-down my fave of the meal. It's a sesame-flavored Asian-style slaw made with crunchy Ramen noodles. Y'all KNOW how much I love Ramen, so it's no surprise that this was the best.

My parents only recently discovered that they actually like sweet potatoes. They both grew up eating the sickly-sweet candied yam-style sweet taters, topped with gooey marshmallows. Neither my mom or dad remembered liking those, and both thought sweet potatoes were gross. And then I introduced them to savory sweet taters (like sweet tater fries, roasted wedges, and such). Now they like sweet potatoes when prepared without added sugar. My mom made these whipped sweet potatoes super creamy by adding Tofutti cream cheese:

I made this cornflake-topped hash brown casserole from my cookbook. It's a veganized version of the one my mama used to always make. I didn't really tell anyone that it was vegan, and I don't think they even noticed! I used Daiya cheddar in place of shredded dairy cheese.

Mama made some green beans and white potatoes in the Crock Pot:

Granny brought over some of her famous Greens & Turnips. Nobody makes slow-cooked greens like my Granny. Nobody. She must sprinkle them with magic soul food dust:

Granny also brought over a Crock Pot of corn:

And Granny made a creamy vegan cheezecake with strawberry sauce! I'm not sure what all went into it, but I know it involved tofu, vegan pudding, and a crunchy homemade crust.

I baked the Dark Chocolate Tipsy Pecan Pie from my cookbook. It has a little rum in it just for fun:

I wasn't the only one who stuffed myself until I was incapacitated. My boyfriend Paul went straight back to bed after dinner, where he promptly passed smooth out!

My plate was as loaded as yours. I made all my family favorites, minus green bean casserole (because I like it more than anyone else). Your Granny's cheezecake looks incredible - and what a great idea to keep everything warm in Crock Pots!

Yumerrific! I think one of my aunts made ramen noodle slaw for one of our 4th of July things once- good stuff! My Thanksgiving centerpiece was an awesome stuffed acorn squash I'll talk about tomorrow :-)

Oooh, everything looks SO yummy! I made vegan versions of a lot of classics at my fam's Thanksgiving meal. My favorites would have to be the wild rice cornbread stuffing from The Kind Life website, with PPK's Savory Mushroom Gravy. So psyched to have leftovers for tomorrow!

Your thanksgiving looks delicious! My favorite dish this year was the one that I contributed (is that wrong?), the only vegetable on the table (ok THAT's definitely wrong). Butternut squash with spinach and feta. It's even good without the feta!

How I miss cornbread dressing! That's the only kind my mom would make and the recipe was passed down from my granny too, who was raised in Texas. I don't make it cuz no one else on my husbands side of the family eats cornbread dressing and my son doesn't like dressing, mabye cuz he hasn't tasted the good stuff. Can't wait to see your dressing recipe.

My name is Bianca ...

About Me

I'm an 11-year vegan, 21-year vegetarian from the Mid-South, not too far from the muddy banks of the Mississippi River. And that means cornbread, butter beans, and collard greens.
These days, I live in Memphis. Check out my cookbook — Cookin' Crunk. It's filled with yummilicious veganized soul food and country classics.